by M J Porter
So far, there’d been nothing, and the hint of dawn was starting to tease the horizon. Between the mist, the stench, and the darkness of night with too much cloud cover for the moon to be clearly seen, it was exhausting and seemed fruitless as well.
Leofric was convinced that the body must have travelled further than this by now. Perhaps they should row downstream, follow the current and see if the body was there.
But the Danish ship-men, more used to the Thames than Leofric was, were adamant that the body couldn’t have been missed.
Before they’d set out that evening, the fisherfolk and merchants had been quizzed to make sure they’d not snagged the body in their netting or with their oars. The denial from all had only reinforced the belief of everyone, apart from Leofric, that the body was still waiting to be found.
The splash of a fish re-entering the water made Leofric flinch.
How could Harthacnut have ordered this desecration of his half-brother? The thought chilled Leofric.
Harthacnut had not even been in England for a month. In that time he’d caused consternation, confusion and no end of hardship for the English.
Not for the first time, Leofric wished Harald still lived. Harald, while far from being an easy man, had made some small effort to rule the English for their betterment. Harthacnut held no such ambition.
While their relationship remained cordial, if distant, Leofric was aware that Lord Godwine had suffered greatly. The thought had not excited him as much as it might once have done. For although Lord Godwine suffered, so did everyone else in England.
The news from Denmark, sent from Lady Estrid, content to continue their secret communications, was that Harthacnut’s cousin ruled in his place, and ruled well. Leofric was not alone in wishing that some new catastrophe would befall that kingdom so that Harthacnut would be summoned back to Denmark. Only then would the English be left in peace, to lick their wounds, and try and determine a way forward.
“There,” a white finger pointed, appearing almost as lifeless as that of a day-old corpse. Seeing the object more quickly, Leofric moved to hook it and bring it closer to the ship.
Leofric strained. The object was more substantial than all the others he’d so far found. His heart flickered with the challenge and the possibility that this might finally be whatever was left of Harald.
“Urgh,” Leofric grunted with the effort, the two brands once more held high to illuminate the prize.
Around the ship, two other groups of people mirrored the one he was in. Finding Harald’s body was a matter of honour for the Danish community of London.
Leofric had been surprised when he’d found others keen to assist him. He had thought his desire to rebury the king’s body would have been his and his son’s alone. It had warmed him to know that Cnut remained revered by his country people, and more, that it extended to Harald.
He doubted it would ever apply to Harthacnut.
Harthacnut had not embraced the people of London. Not even those who’d been born in Denmark or had Danish parents. Leofric believed that Harthacnut had been foolish to ignore them. Now they would exact their revenge.
But it all had to be done secretly.
While Leofric strained to pull the item closer, his thoughts turned to Harthacnut’s mother. Lady Emma wasn’t high in her son’s favours. In fact, Harthacnut was almost excluding her from all aspects of the government, other than during ceremonial gatherings.
Yet, Lady Emma seemed as distressed as Leofric at Harthacnut’s violent reaction toward Harald’s body.
“He should leave it well alone,” Lady Emma’s complaints had been loud and vocal, although they’d spoken in what little privacy they could find in the king’s hall in London.
“Harald was still his brother, as much as I hate to admit it. His father would have been devastated.”
To hear someone speak of King Cnut had surprised Leofric, even when it was Lady Emma. The few years since Cnut’s untimely death had felt elongated and drawn out, disproportionately so. It felt like an entire lifetime ago, and yet it had barely been five years.
How much had changed in the interval?
Gone was the surety of Cnut’s rule. Gone the surety of Æthelred’s uneven governance before that. But, one thing the two men had in common, had been their desire to rule consistently, even if not always well.
Leofric felt aged as he continued to haul on the object he’d discovered.
He sounded like his father, and Wulfstan, offering the opinion, ‘that it had been better in his youth.’ Leofric sighed, angry with himself. Now was not the time for self-pity, although, he decided it was healthy to realise that time had moved on, and he could no longer be sure of people the way he had once been.
Even Lady Emma seemed permanently altered since her banishment from England, and Leofric hadn’t expected that.
Lady Emma had always been imperious, haughty, but she too had been a constant thorn in Leofric’s side, his father’s oaths binding him to a woman it was difficult to always respect, and yet who he must do the best he could for, even when she had been the ‘other’ woman in Cnut’s life, and despised by his own wife for that very reason.
Leofric knew he was far from as agile as his father had been at ensuring events played out so that his oaths could always be honoured. He’d mastered the art of fulfilling oaths even if different to the way they’d been intended.
“My Lord,” while Leofric’s gaze remained on the object he pulled ever closer to the ship, one of the other men on board ship called for his attention. Leofric raised his eyes unwillingly. He didn’t want to lose his treasure if that’s what it was.
“They’ve found something,” now Leofric did turn to gaze at the ship the man indicated. Ælfgar was over there, involved, as he’d felt he must be. It was Ælfgar who’d discovered what Harthacnut had done, and Ælfgar who’d demanded that something be done to rectify the wrong.
From the other ship, Leofric could hear men speaking too loudly, the object of searching at night to keep their endeavours a secret. But Leofric could see little other than the lamps and brands.
“What have they found?” Leofric huffed in annoyance, the smell of the river overwhelming him. What did the people of London pour into their greatest source of water? And why? He wrinkled his nose, his back straining, his arms aching with the effort of keeping hold of his own haul.
“A cloak, My Lord, but potentially the king’s cloak.” Leofric didn’t correct the man who spoke as though Harald was still the king of England.
“Then help me. I have something else. It might be what we search for.”
The men to Leofric’s left jumped to offer his strength to Leofric’s failing attempt to pull the object closer.
Leofric wanted to close his eyes, not see what was spooling closer to the side of the ship, but he somehow knew that this time it would be what they searched for.
Slowly, the wooden pole was reeled into the ship, more and more men rushing to add their own strength, as the rumour spread through them all that Earl Leofric had found the body of King Harald.
Leofric only prayed it was so, as he felt his strength start to desert him.
The object was heavy, no doubt weighed down with muck from the river.
Or perhaps, it was not King Harald’s body, but rather a cow that had drowned in the river. It felt heavy enough to be a bloody ox, let alone a cow.
Only then the brands of another ship were added to their own, turning so that they would trap the object between them both, and Leofric knew that they’d found what they’d come to find.
Two nights of searching, but finally, they would ensure that King Harald’s body was once more interred in the soil.
The object turned over slowly in the wake of their ship, and Leofric was not alone in gasping in disgust.
Perhaps the river mist made it worse, or the odious smell that seemed to ooze from the river, or maybe, it was just that horrific to spy a body that had been buried months ago and then tossed into
a bog, and then a river.
The skin had long since sunk beyond the bone, as the head popped above the river, sightless eyes seeming to demand answers as to this outrage. The flesh of the lips and tongue all but eaten away by the denizens of the river, the hair a mockery of what had once been one of Harald’s most appealing features.
Leofric tasted bile but knew instructions needed to be issued if they were going to stand a chance of recovering the body completely.
“The nets,” he called, for everyone had suddenly grown still.
Of course, they’d known they hunted for a body that would be long passed its best. But it was one thing to hunt for something, and another to actually face it, in the darkness of the night. There was no one for company but the dead. The eerie silence of the night was only filled with the sound of the river beneath their ship.
“The nets,” Leofric called again, his anger clear for all to hear, for all he hissed.
“We don’t want to lose him,” Leofric gasped. He worried he’d exhaust his hold on the wooden pole, even with the aid of the men beside him.
“Quickly, the nets,” Leofric recognised his Ælfgar’s voice, and somehow, it broke through the strange silence, and then men were rushing to grab the nets borrowed from a fisherman. More of the ships had joined them. The ship’s commanders had skilfully managed to bring their craft close enough that they formed a square around the body. Four of ships almost touched, but not entirely, the other two, made time to lie across the length of the Thames, in case they did lose their hold on the body.
Provided the body didn’t sink below the ships, pulled under by the current, they would have accomplished their task.
“Hurry,” Leofric called, almost desperately. He wasn’t sure he could hold on for much longer. The river current tugged at his prize, and he feared that the Thames had begun to turn, and the body would be taken from him, despite all of their precautions.
Voices whispered to each other across the river. Ideas and suggestions, but Leofric merely needed the net to be cast. Their catch would be grisly.
“Hurry,” Leofric commanded once more. Now two nets were thrown, one from two separate ships, somehow at precisely the same time, the one knocking the other away from the body.
Leofric growled low in his throat. He knew everyone was trying to help, but it was becoming impossible to hold the body. He feared if he didn’t let go soon, the current would drag him, and the shape of King Harald deep into the depths of the Thames.
“Gather them in,” Ælfgar spoke with annoyance, his voice filled with the command of a man who knows his worth, but sweat beaded Leofric’s forehead, and he feared to catch the eye of his son. He couldn’t look away and neither could he let go.
And then he heard a splash, followed by another one, and Leofric looked in horror at the two men who swam toward his grisly catch.
When one man was close to the body, another splash could be heard. Leofric watched as the net was finally flung over the body, the other man securing it around the one end of the body while the first man took a deep breath and dived deep.
Leofric dared not look. The current was too strong for the dead, and he didn’t want it to take a live man in exchange.
A hush fell, as the man failed to re-emerge, a murmur of fear before another loud splash, and the man reared from the water, as though a fish jumping free. His face was grim in the light of the brands, his voice a harsh whisper.
“Pull him in,” the diver demanded. “He’s all in the net.” Only now did Leofric feel the weight of the body fall away, as others took the ropes on the side of the net, and pulled with all their might.
Realising what was about to happen, Leofric tried to stand and move away from the prow of the ship, but too many stood behind him. There was nowhere for him to go, although he allowed the pole to slip from his fingers. He no longer needed to hold it.
Breathing heavily, Leofric watched the grisly cargo come ever closer. Only when the men took a moment to catch their breath before hauling the netting inside the ship, was he able to push through them all and stand amidships.
While his arms trembled, Leofric snatched one of the brands from the side of the ship and held it as high as he could. He wanted to be sure that this truly was the king, and not just the corpse of some other unfortunate.
With a grunt of effort, the men on board ship pulled the netting inside. They strained, all of them as silent as they could be.
From the water, the two voices of the swimmers could be heard issuing instructions.
“Pull to the left, and now both together, and now to the right. Pull at the same speed, you damn fools.” Leofric allowed the loud noise without complaint. If they were found now by the king’s shipmen, he doubted any would genuinely wish to confiscate the outcome of their labours.
A mixture of thuds and squelches reached Leofric’s ears. His stomach threatened to empty its contents, as the cargo finally settled in the keel of the ship, the body coming into sharp focus.
The cloak King Harald had been interred with, had been ripped from his back,. Fragments of his clothing remained lathered to the remnants of the body. Enormous coils of discarded fishing hemp and rigging from ships twirled their way around the body. The black flesh of what was visible clearly showed the injury that had killed King Harald.
Leofric launched himself to the side of the ship and violently voided his stomach contents into the greedy Thames. It would take whatever it was offered, or so it seemed.
Neither was he alone. All around him, Leofric heard men vomiting.
Bad enough to walk a battlefield after a battle, but to witness a body so many months after death was horrific. And doubly so because of its abandonment in the Thames, where the fishes had thought it a feast.
The fish had no compunction about eating flesh, no matter how old it was.
Leofric fought for composure, as the other ships began to peel away from their boat, heading back toward the dock where the Danish moored their vessels. Leofric knew they needed to follow.
The sky was still black, the hint of sunrise far in the future, but they needed to return and bury the king once more, all under cover of darkness.
“Men, come, we must return,” his words were a command, but also rich with understanding.
Their task had been accomplished, awful as it had been. Now came the even harder part.
Back on dry land, Bishop Lyfing was waiting to bless the body and conduct it to its new, secret burial. The bishop was a brave man, to risk the censor of his king, with no promise of protection, even from Earl Leofric. But Harthacnut had cast out the bishop. He’d assured Leofric that he’d do whatever needed to be done.
Recalled to their duties and stepping as far away from the netting as possible, the oarsmen returned to their tasks. Quickly, the ship was streaming in the wake of the others, heading back to dry land. Leofric knew he should take the time to check Harald’s body, if only to cover the hidden scar that showed where Harald’s neck had been sewn tightly closed after his death, but he just couldn’t.
Leofric would have to wait until the body was on dry land. Until then, he reached to his shoulders and released the brooches that held his cloak in place. It was a good cloak of sealskin, but he would forego it, in the hope that he need not peer any closer at what remained of Harald.
As he slid the cloak over the body, tears streamed silently down his face.
For all their arguments, and sorrows, Harald had been his foster-son and his king. More importantly, he’d been the son of a man and a woman he admired. The defilement of the body by his half-brother was too much and too cruel. Men who should have known better had been involved. It only added to Leofric’s fury.
Leofric stood, his tears drying in the cold night air, his anger coursing through his body.
What hope was there for the future with a man such as Harthacnut as the King of England?
Chapter 6
AD1040
Leofric
It had been hard enoug
h to pull the broken body from the Thames but transporting it from the belly of the ship to the wharf was even more horrifying.
The other five ships had all returned before the one with its ghastly cargo, and there was room aplenty for the boat to pull up right to the wharf.
While the majority of the Danish ship-men leapt to the wooden jetty, six remained on the ship, alongside Leofric.
Ælfgar had taken it upon himself to organise those who milled around, seemingly desperate to see Harald’s body and be reassured that it had been recovered. Leofric was pleased when many of the surplus shipmen returned to the nearby hall, to drink and warm themselves. The new coffin, made of fine oak from Mercia, was brought to the wooden jetty.
Bishop Lyfing, his eyes white in the dark of the night, was already busily intoning his prayers. They leant a reassuringly ritualistic feel to the bizarre events of the night.
Hastily, with the fishing net still in place, Leofric and his helpers, wrapped the body securely in his sealskin cloak, and hauled the body upright.
Free from the water, the stench was rotten, but the body was much lighter. Breathing shallowly, Leofric stood upright, his burden slippery in his hands.
All of the men’s faces had bleached of colour, and Leofric imagined he looked no better than a day old corpse either, as they made their way to the side of the ship.
The Thames chose that moment to run still, and it was remarkably easy for them to step from the ship to the jetty, without losing their hold on the burden they carried.
But Leofric knew the body couldn’t be buried as it was. There was a fishing net wrapped around the body, a length of coarse linen, and who knew what else from the depths of the Thames.
“Bring more brands,” Leofric commanded, standing upright and straightening his back. He arched, his arms on his back. He ached all over; his arms, and back, but mostly his heart.
He’d already prepared Harald’s body for burial once. He didn’t relish fulfilling the same task a second time, and yet it must be done.
With just Bishop Lyfing, although Leofric assumed he should only be called Brother Lyfing now, Ælfgar and the six men from his own ship in attendance, Leofric steeled himself to pull back the cloak.